Fluid transport systems are well known and used in a number of applications. One specific application of transporting a fluid in a machine is the transportation of ink in a printer. Common examples of inks include aqueous inks and phase change or solid inks. Aqueous inks remain in a liquid form when stored prior to being used in imaging operations. Solid ink or phase change inks typically have a solid form, either as pellets or as ink sticks of colored cyan, yellow, magenta and black ink, that are inserted into feed channels in a printer through openings to the channels. After the ink sticks are fed into the printer, they are urged by gravity or a mechanical actuator to a heater assembly of the printer. The heater assembly includes a heater and a melt plate. The heater, which converts electrical energy into heat, is positioned proximate the melt plate to heat the melt plate to a temperature that melts an ink stick coming into contact with the melt plate. The melt plate may be oriented to drip melted ink into a reservoir and the ink stored in the reservoir continues to be heated while awaiting subsequent use.
Each reservoir of colored, liquid ink may be fluidly coupled to an inkjet printing apparatus through at least one fluid pathway. The liquid ink is supplied from the reservoir as the inkjet ejectors emit ink onto a receiving medium or imaging member. The inkjet ejectors in the inkjet printing apparatus may be piezoelectric devices that eject the ink onto an imaging surface. The inkjet ejectors are selectively activated by a controller with a driving signal.
Conduits typically employed in transporting ink between a reservoir and one or more inkjet ejectors may be referred to as “umbilicals”. An umbilical is a flexible conduit fluidly coupled to an inkjet printing apparatus at one end and one or more ink supplies at another end. An umbilical may contain one or many separate channels for transporting fluids such as ink. Typical prior art umbilical assemblies include one or more conduits formed from a flexible material, such as extruded silicone, for example. During operation, the delivery conduits are filled with ink so as to avoid inserting air bubbles into the inkjet ejectors. Air bubbles suspended in ink supplying the jet stack may cause ejector misfires during imaging operations.
During maintenance and cleaning operations, ink within an ink reservoir may be occasionally purged through the inkjet ejectors to restore a clear path through one or more inkjet ejectors. An ink receptacle may be used to capture and hold the purged ink. The purged ink in the receptacle is currently discarded, however, an ink transfer system that can reclaim ink purged from an inkjet printing apparatus would be beneficial.